1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to devices for applying liquid and granular materials such as insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and fertilizers to ground surfaces, and more particularly, the invention relates to an extremely low cost apparatus suitable for manual use without vehicles and which employs rudamentary and unsophisticated structural components.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
There are numerous known applicator devices which are available for ground application of liquid and granular materials such as herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, plant growth regulators, fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals. Most often, in developed countries, the applicator devices have been designed to obtain maximum coverage with minimum manual effort involved. The prior art spraying equipment has been utilized with both land vehicles and with aircraft. It is well known to employ tank type vehicles to store and transport the liquid materials to be applied in combination with a suitable boom device which carries a spray head having a plurality of nozzles mounted therein. The height of the boom above the ground can be readily varied as the vehicle is moved and the nozzles and spray head have been designed to carefully monitor the spray pattern and swath without causing excessive drift of the applied materials. One such spray applicator has been described and illustrated in my co-pending U.S. Pat. application, Ser. No. 885,773, filed July 15, 1986, entitled "GROUND SPRAY APPLICATOR", now U.S. Pat. No. 4,760,963.
The presently available ground spray applicator devices are relatively complicated in construction and expensive in manufacture. The existing equipment is intended to be adjustable to provide the desired type of spray application in a minimum amount of time with a minimum amount of manual involvement. While such equipment is efficient, cost effective and suitable for use in developed countries, the currently available spray applicators are usually too expensive for use in developing countries wherein there is usually an oversupply of manual labor and an undersupply of available monetary means to purchase the currently available sophisticated equipment. Accordingly, even though the need for efficient liquid and granular material applicators remains equally the same in both third world countries and in developed countries in order to approach maximum crop production, the third world countries have suffered dramatically from the lack of availability of suitable applicator equipment due to the very cost of such equipment. Under the circumstances, a pressing need remains to provide simple and cost effective liquid and granular material applicator systems which can be readily employed in all countries, especially those countries that are relatively poor and agriculturally deprived.